A friend has slipped me a May 2020 draft of Damien Chazelle‘s Babylon, which will be his first theatrical festival since LKa-La Land. late 1920s Hollywood tale about convulsive changes in the nascent film industry (i.e., the advent of sound recordings and the up-and-down fortunes that resulted) and about who got hurt qnd who didn’t.

A la Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, Babylon (which may or may not be distributed by Paramount or Lionsgate) offers a blend of made-up characters and a few real-life Hollywood names of the time — Clara Bow, Anna May Wong. Paul Bern and Fatty Arbuckle (although I’m presuming there are more). I’ve only read about 40% of it, and I’m certainly not going to describe it except in the most general of terms, and to report that it runs 184 pages. And that ain’t hay.

Most of Chazelle’s story (or the portion of it that I’ve read) is sometimes amusingly cynical and snappy, at other times good natured and other times not so much. It takes place in the golden, gilded realms of Los Angeles during this convulsive, four or five-year period (roughly 1926 to 1931, maybe ’32) when movie dialogue tipped the scales, opened doors and re-ordered the power structure. Everyone above the level of food catering had to re-assess, re-think, change their game.

It starts out with a long, bravura sequence that mill probably impress critics and audiences in the same way La-La Land‘s opening freeway dance number did. Except Babylon is darker, raunchier. The first 26 or 27 pages acquaint us with the main characters (one of whom may be played by Emma Stone) while diving into the most bacchanalian Hollywood party you’ve ever attended or read about. Cocaine, booze, exhibitionist sex, an elephant, the singing of a lesbian torch song, heroin, blowjobs, and …uhhm, a certain inanimate…forget it.

Unless Chazelle embarks on a serious rewrite, the 27-minute opening of Babylon is going to seem like quite the envelope pusher. It’s basically Fellini Satyricon meets Day of the Locust meets the secret orgy sequence in Eyes Wide Shot meets the Copaacabana entrance scene in Goodfellas. Plus Baz Luhrmann‘s The Great Gatsby meets The Bad and the Beautiful meets Singin’ in the Rain meets The Big Knife…that’ll do for openers.

It seems to me that Chazelle wrote Babylon with a jaded, somewhat angry attitude. When a couple of scenes tip into outright porn you say to yourself, “Yeah, I get it — he’s showing this stuff in quotes.” Laugh if you want but the audience will be attending this party in the dubious company of a lot of self-obsessed, deluded or ruthless types. Anyway, that’s all.

July 21, 2019 2:49 pmby Jeffrey Wells

July 21, 2019 12:34 pmby Jeffrey Wells

From “Don’t Fuck It Up,” posted on 12.30.15:

In any creative enterprise the worst mantra you can repeat to yourself is “don’t fuck it up.” Those words are, of course, rooted in fear and a corresponding lack of confidence on the part of the artist. I know. In the late ’70s I tried like a motherfucker be a diligent, exacting movie journalist while repeating these words over and over, fearful as I was of exposing myself as the marginally talented, somewhat under-educated guy I feared that I was deep down.

Anxiety, insecurity and fear are jail cells. “Don’t fuck it up” did nothing but freeze my instincts and make me afraid of my own voice, and of what the world might think.

What are helpful words to go by when you’re creating? “Let’s see what happens if I fuck with this or fiddle with it in some fuck-all way” has always worked for me. Once you stop giving a shit, everything starts to flow. You can’t uncork artistic discovery if you’re too worried about disappointing your bosses or fans or whomever. If you overdo the fuck-all you can always formalize and clean it up, but you can never fix work that’s been created with a sword over your head.

July 20, 2019 11:10 pmby Jeffrey Wells

From the “Crosby vs. Feinberg” comment thread, penned by yours truly a few hours ago:

(1) David Crosby being asked by Scott Feinberg to recall certain deeper feelings and recollections about Joni Mitchell clearly irritated him.

Perhaps because Crosby feels very badly about the greatest singer-poet troubador of the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s being in a somewhat diminished state today. (Memory lapses, or so I’ve been told.). Due to her stroke of 2015. Which Crosby has observed the aftermath of first-hand.

At one point Scott was asking about (or certainly alluding to) the hanky-panky history between Le Croz and Joni and Graham Nash, and on some gut level Crosby reacted with some kind of angry primal revolt. Something to do with (a) the aroma of inane questions about who was diddling who at what juncture and (b) rage, rage against the dying of the light.

(2) Scott is very exacting, highly focused, hard working, ultra disciplined, knows his stuff, cares a great deal, etc.

All that said, I think his first misstep may have been when he asked Crosby to explain what the term “harmony” means. Which, for any kind of seasoned musician, isn’t too far from an interviewer asking an average human being to define what “breathing”, “eating”, “talking” and “walking upright” mean.

And then Scott doubles down by asking Croz to explain how standard “harmony” differs from sophisticated harmonies a la CSNY, Beach Boys, Beatles, etc. Which, at first brush, isn’t too far from that scene in George Pal’s The Time Machine (‘60) in which a blonde-haired Eloi asks Rod Taylor what “laws” are. Or what a “book” is.

Scott didn’t ask these forehead-slappers to be perverse. He asked them because he sincerely believes that a significant percentage of 20something and even 30something listeners might not have a clear idea what these terms mean. Which may in fact be the case, but C’MON, MAN!!! Club me to death with a croquet mallet or, you know, a putting iron.

July 20, 2019 10:39 pmby Jeffrey Wells

On 7.18 the N.Y. Times posted an interactive investigation piece about the possible causes of the 4.15.19 Notre Dame fire, and how Parisian firefighters managed to put it out before the whole cathedral collapsed, which, the article reports, was something that damn near happened save for the efforts of certain valiant fireman.

The co-authors of the article are Elian Peltier, James Glanz, Mika Gröndahl, Weiyi Cai, Adam Nossiter and Liz Alderman.

For me the most interesting portion is the following two paragraphs:

I know nothing about the odds that a short circuit (either “in the electrified bells of the spire or in the elevators that had been set up on the scaffolding to help workers carry out renovations”) might have been the cause of the blaze. For all I know an electric spark was the cause. But a hunch tells me this is a red herring. The fact that the second paragraph ends with what is presented as a remote third possibility — “cigarette butts found on the scaffolding, apparently left by workers” — tells me this is almost certainly the most likely cause.

But investigators and the government of French president Emmanuel Macron don’t want to blame cigarette smokers, because that would be the same as blaming the entire proletariat work force, which Macron wants the support of in the next election.

But try to imagine the foreman of the workers who were puffing away on the cathedral scaffolding. You’re dealing with ancient timbers in the attic and the possibility that only a few accidental embers could ignite a catastrophic blaze. What kind of a moron foreman would say to his workers, “It’s okay, guys…unfiltered Gauloises are a French adult male birthright… smoke ’em if you got’ em.”

So far only one certifiable villain has been discovered — a security employee who didn’t call the fire department when a smoke alarm sounded, and who sent a guard to the wrong building, a side chapel called the “sacristy”. The guard found nothing. Excerpt: :Instead of calling the fire department, the security employee called his boss but didn’t reach him. The manager called back and eventually deciphered the mistake. He called the guard: Leave the sacristy and run to the main attic.”

July 20, 2019 10:26 pmby Jeffrey Wells

July 20, 2019 9:18 pmby Jeffrey Wells

Posted on 9.27.07: Easily the most soulful and influential female poet-composer-performer of the late 20th Century (as well as the most emotionally arresting, elegantly phrased, bravest and saddest), Joni Mitchell spat out the blunt truth when Vulture‘s Tim Murphy asked why she’d recorded no new tunes since the days of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

“I was angry at the politics. Especially [at Bush]. Angry at the American people. At Christians. At theology — the ignorance of it. And I didn’t want to write about it. I removed myself from society and painted. It was a method of avoiding the anger, not addressing it.

“I couldn’t listen to music for ten years, I hated it all. It all pissed me off. Music just became grotesquely egocentric and made for money. It wasn’t music — there was no muse. Music requires a muse. The producer is not a muse. He’s a manufacturer. Contemporary music made me want to punch people. I couldn’t stand any of it. The whoring, the drive-by shooting of it all. I don’t care how well crafted it is. America is in a runaway-train position and dragging all the world with it. It’s grotesquely mentally ill.”

Mitchell’s reputation as a world-class phraser, searcher and sufferer will last for the next several centuries. She’s a heavy cat among kittens. Nobody has recorded a more touching and transcendent version of “Unchained Melody” than Mitchell. Her early ’70s to early ’80s stuff was perfection, completion. Especially The Hissing of Summer Lawns and Hejira. Those “six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain” and “the hexagram of the heavens.” That “poppy poison-poppy tourniquet [that] slithers away on brass like mouthpiece spit.” I’ll take these lyrics with me into the next life.

Posted on 3.31.15: Joni Mitchell, 71, was rushed to the hospital this afternoon after reportedly being found unconscious, She was said to be alert in the ride down to a hospital (presumably UCLA or Cedars), but is reportedly in intensive care. I’ve spoken to a friend who was with her last week, and he said he sensed that all was perhaps not entirely well. Mitchell, he said, had called for “a healer” to drop by and lay on hands or help out in some kind of shamanistic way.

Mitchell has been an unrepentant smoker all her life, beginning at age nine. My friend mentioned that there’s been some discussion (and perhaps an intention) of switching to electronic cigarettes but after six decades of reportedly heavy smoking…God help her.

Obviously everyone wants her to recover and push on, but at a certain point the body just can’t take the nicotine and the toxins and complications will manifest.

Sidelight: I attended a short, smallish concert that Mitchell gave at Studio 54 in October ’82 to promote “Wild Things Run Fast.” The crowd was not huge, maybe 200 or 250, and I was standing fairly close and pretty much dead center.

No female artist has ever touched me like Mitchell **, and I was quite excited about being this close to her. I was beaming, starry-eyed and staring at her like the most self-abasing suck-up fan you could imagine, and during the first song her eyes locked onto mine and I swear to God we began to kind of half-stare at each other. (Some performers do this, deciding to sing for this or that special person in the crowd.) Her eyes danced around from time to time but she kept coming back to me, and I remember thinking, “Okay, she senses that I love her and she probably likes my looks so I guess I’m her special fanboy or something for the next few minutes.”

Mitchell was dressed in a white pants suit and some kind of colorful scarf, and she sang and played really well, and I remember she had a little bit of a sexy tummy going on. Sorry but that had a portion of my attention along with the songs and “being there” and a feeling that I’d remember this moment for decades to come.

4.20.12: Variety‘s Jeff Sneider reported about that ludicrous notion of casting Taylor Swift as Mitchell in a film version of Sheila Weller’s 2008 book, “Ladies Like Us.” Swift was said to be “circling” the Mitchell role.

The Katie Jacobs-directed film was going to be shot under the aegis of Sony and Di Bonaventura Pictures. But last fall it was reported that Mitchell had killed the Swift casting. (She told a Sunday Times interviewer that “I squelched that…I said to the producer, ‘All you’ve got is a girl with high cheekbones.’” She added that the screenplay “is just a lot of gossip… you don’t have the great scenes.”) < It was "an appalling idea," I wrote, "because Mitchell’s manner and speaking style always conveyed the churning soul of a poet and artist, and Swift looks and talks like a none-too-introspective, looking-to-please pop personality. Mitchell is a world-class lady with oceans, rivers and tributaries within; Swift is a pond." ** My beloved Patti Smith ranks a close second.

July 20, 2019 7:19 pmby Jeffrey Wells

During the first two-thirds of a 39-minute “Awards Chatter” interview, Hollywood Reporter columnist and podcaster Scott Feinberg and legendary rock star David Crosby seem to hit it off. But then Crosby starts to lose patience with Feinberg’s questions, which he regards as overly generic, simplistic and boilerplate.

Crosby seems particularly irked by Feinberg’s questions about Joni Mitchell, whom Crosby has known for over 50 years, first as a musical admirer, then a lover, then a creative partner, and then as an off-and-on friend. Crosby visited Mitchell after her 2015 stroke and was the first person to say anything substantive about her condition, or so I recall.

Things begin to go wrong around the 26 and 1/2 minute mark. And then during the last three or four minutes Crosby shifts into outright hostility, calling Feinberg “a dumb guy,” “an asshole”, a “dipshit”, an “idiot” and so on. Feinberg understandably wasn’t at all charmed by this. He also understands, I’m sure, that you can’t win ’em all. All interviewers try to get along with charm and intelligence, dealing the usual cards (upfront, polite, deferential), but some people are like oil and vinegar. You just have to shrug it off when this happens.

I think this was was actually a fascinating interview. Hundreds upon hundreds of podcast chats are posted on a regular basis these days, and for the first 25 or so minutes Feinberg vs. Crosby was just another amiable discussion that was ostensibly about promoting a film (i.e., David Crosby: Remember My Name). And then came the thorns and abrasions.

The first stirring of trouble happens at the 26:55 mark when Feinberg begins asking particulars of Crosby’s relationship with Joni Mitchell, which began in late ’67 or early ’68 (or something like that). Here are some roughly transcribed portions of the discussion — words and phrases are omitted but the gist of the interview is, I feel, fairly represented.

Crosby: I have to ask…are we going to go through my entire history, week by week?
Feinberg: No, no, no…
Crosby: Tell me what we’re doing here.
Feinberg: Well, what would you like to do?
Crosby: I’d like to talk about the last four records in a row that I just made.
Feinberg: Well, we have an hour so…
Crosby: Okay, we’re creeping along here. Uhm, I had already been living in Laurel Canyon.
Feinberg: Everybody knows retroactively what Laurel Canyon scene was about, but at the time was it known as a kind of artists’ community?
Crosby: No, hell no. We just trying to get above the smog. I had lived in L.A. and knew how bad the smog was. I had already been living in Laurel Canyon when I came back from Florida with Joni. We were just trying to get above the smog. You go up into the hills and there’s a smog line. I was born and raised in Los Angeles, could’t afford Beverly Hills, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to live downtown so…
Feinberg: It’s just that there are such differing recollections about you three guys initially got together.
Crosby (under his breath): Oh, God.
Feinberg: What [unintelligible]?

(More…)
July 20, 2019 5:53 amby Jeffrey Wells

Last Monday I did a phoner with Cameron Crowe, the director-screenwriter who did double duty as producer and off-camera interviewer for A.J. Eaton‘s David Crosby: Remember My Name (Sony Pictures Classic, 7.19).

An interviewer usually knows if a q & a is going well while it’s happening. This was one of those occasions, but I realized later on it was a bit more. A nice conversation with a nice give-and-take flow.

HE: “This movie has an extraordinary candor factor. I’ve seen it three times, and you get the same contact high from listening to Crosby spill his guts, just spilling it all. It’s almost like a religious current. You say to yourself, ‘If Crosby can be this calmly candid about his failings, about his past…whom he used to be and who he is now…you say to yourself, ‘Gee, I’d like to go out and talk to my friends this way’…you know? I’d like to be this really candid, deeply honest person…it feels cleansing, you know?”

Crowe: “Totally, totally agree. Crosby just said something like that [during the junket], and I’d never heard him say it. Exactly what you said. It was just ‘get the load off me…just say it and get it out there’…and I’d never heard him say this but he said he felt lighter. That’s what I love about him. That kind of exposure. He said about the movie that it’s really hard to watch that guy. But on another level he’s getting off on the dump truck unloading his head.”

Crowe on the still-festering resentments between Crosby and ex-CSNY bandmates Stephen Stills, Neil Young, Graham Nash: “They’ve hurt each other a lot. Sometimes it’s been about women…about David shooting his mouth off about Neil’s [wife Daryl Hannah]. Sometimes it’s been about credit. Sometimes it’s been about money. They’re used to doing this. I think they just got really tired of each other.”

I’ve posted the above video two or three times, but look at it again. It happened in Park City after the film’s very first screening on 1.26.19. Crowe told me that when the film ended he wasn’t sure if Crosby would be angry or sullen or what. But the crowd melted him down.

At the 31-second mark the obviously shaken and humbled Crosby looks up, feels the applause and emotion, and leans back against the curtain as if to say, “I don’t know if I can even stand up after what I’ve just seen and been through, and what I’m feeling now.”

Crosby: “It’s about being fragile. And you know that a catharsis will take place. You’re watching your life, and you learn stuff, and I’ve been there.” At 1:18 he looks at Eaton with moisture in his eyes and says, “And it really caught me.” In response to which Eaton pats Crosby on the shoulder.

“At least twice I was gonna cry, and one time I did cry,” Crosby goes on. “And you guys did a good goddam job. And Eaton says, ‘No, you did a good job.” Crosby: “Very emotional. A lot of pain.”

July 19, 2019 7:35 amby Jeffrey Wells

From “Pete Buttigieg Is Still Figuring This Out,” a N.Y. Times Sunday magazine piece by Mark Leibovich:

“Some of Buttigieg’s giddier supporters and profilers have likened him to Barack Obama, not just in his appeal to a new generation of political consumers but also in his intent to create a new way of thinking and discussing politics. He is the next level of anti-politician politician, quintessentially political but running against what he sees as the counterproductive outrage that seems to have taken hold in American politics, particularly in the Trump era. ‘Our response is going to be to model something completely different,’ Buttigieg told me.

“And indeed, he possesses an Obama-like ability to wield cool detachment — impassioned and remote at the same time, calmly in a rush. Even his execution of the necessary and grubby candidate activities, like fund-raising, has an earnestly above-it-all air. ‘Hey,’ he began a blast email appeal to his supporters on the eve of the last Federal Election Commission fund-raising deadline. ‘You know that we don’t subscribe to inauthentic urgency here at Pete for America. That’s not why we’re here. We are here to build trusted relationships.’ He then hit up his ‘trusted relationships’ for donations.

“’You can seek to do the right thing,’ Buttigieg said in the wake of the South Bend Eric Logan shooting, ‘and be reasonably confident you made the less bad choice and get your ass handed to you all the same.’

“’I see Pete Buttigieg as more of a healer-warrior, and there’s an absence of vitriol with him,’ Dave Dvorak, a Minneapolis physician, told me. ‘And maybe that’s what we need.'”

July 19, 2019 6:28 amby Jeffrey Wells

If you want a short, flavorful, totally on-the-money taste of what watching certain portions of David Crosby: Remember My Name may (or may not) feel like, please watch the below video. Produced by Rolling Stone and titled “Ask Croz,” it’s just four minutes and 24 seconds of Crosby answering fan questions. What makes it whoa-level is the naked, quietly scalding, take-it-or-leave-it honesty, which is almost always abundant from Crosby but in this instance is also present in the questions.

Like a 16 year-old girl asking about her fear of death and existential gloom. Or a person worrying about a family member, incarcerated on a “bullshit” drug charge, being able to handle prison life. Or a guy who’s angry about the fact that when he and a musician friend are competing for the same girl “she always goes home with him.” Or a general question about fundamental values and what it all feels like to have death patiently waiting on your doorstep.

This warts-and-all candor is also what makes A.J. Eaton and Cameron Crowe’s documentary (Sony Pictures Classics, opening today) such a profoundly rich and transcendent film.

I’ve said this over and over but it really is the shit, this film. A lion-in-winter reflection piece…hugely emotional, meditative…about the tough stuff and the hard rain, about hurt and addiction and rage and all but destroying your life, and then coming back semi-clean and semi-restored, but without any sentimentality or gooey bullshit. An old guy admitting to each and every failing of his life without the slightest attempt to rationalize or minimize. Straight, no chaser. And hugely cleansing for that.

This movie, I swear, delivers one of the best contact highs I’ve ever experienced. By the end it makes you feel lighter, less weighed down, even if you’re 18 or 37 or whatever. We all have stuff churning inside, and we all need catharsis. It’s very rare when a film offers you this for the mere price of admission.

(More…)
July 19, 2019 6:05 amby Jeffrey Wells

So the catty-watties in Tom Hooper‘s Cats (Universal, 12.20) are their own species — cat-human hybrids that don’t much resemble their cousins who cavorted in the popular stage show. Small and lithe with cat ears and whiskers and tails, but darting around on their hind legs and dressed in leotards. And no claws. More of a mocap than a costume-and-makeup thang.

Flatline reaction to Francesca Hayward‘s Victoria, I’m afraid, and a mild shrug for Taylor Swift‘s Bombalurina and Idris Elba‘s Macavity. If anyone owns it, it’s Jennifer Hudson, I suppose. I immediately recognized Judi Dench (Old Deuteronomy) and Ian McKellen (Gus the Theatre Cat). I wish I was allowed to say that James Corden and Rebel Wilson play fat cats, but that era has passed, I’m afraid. Their characters are named Bustopher Jones and Jennyanydots.

The title of this post was stolen from a 7.18 trailer review riff by N.Y. Times contributor Bruce Fretts.

July 18, 2019 4:27 pmby Jeffrey Wells

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Latest HE rundown of 2019 films of a certain preferred quality. 88 as we speak. Leaing off with the likeliest 2019 Best Picture contenders:

1. Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman (Netflix, sometime in October) — A mob hitman recalls his possible involvement with the slaying of Jimmy Hoffa. (Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Jesse Plemons).

2. Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood (Sony, 7.26) — A faded TV actor and his stunt double embark on an odyssey to make a name for themselves in the film industry during the Helter Skelter reign of terror in 1969 Los Angeles. (Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Al Pacino).

3. Marielle Heller‘s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood — The story of Fred Rogers, the honored host and creator of the popular children’s television program, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. (Tom Hanks, Matthew Rhys, Susan Kelechi Watson, Tammy Blanchard)

4. Greta Gerwig‘s Little Women (Sony, 12.25) — Four sisters come of age in America in the aftermath of the Civil War. (Florence Pugh, Timothée Chalamet, Emma Watson, Saoirse Ronan)

5. Jay Roach‘s Fair and Balanced (Lionsgate) — Fox honcho Roger Ailes and sexual harassment allegations that resulted in his resignation. (Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie, John Lithgow, Allison Janney, Kate McKinnon, Malcolm McDowell, Mark Duplass)

6. Kasi Lemmons‘ Harriet (Focus Features) — A feminist 12 Years A Slave, based on the story of freedom fighter Harriet Tubman (Cynthia Erivo), her escape from slavery and subsequent missions to free dozens of slaves through the Underground Railroad in the face of growing pre-Civil War adversity. Cynthia Erivo, Janelle Monae, Joe Alwyn, Deborah Ayorinde, Clarke Peters, Leslie Odom Jr., Tory Kittles, Vondie Curtis-Hall.

7. Dee Rees‘ The Last Thing He Wanted (Netflix) — (boilerplate) A journalist stops her coverage of the 1984 U.S. Presidential election to care for her dying father / Anne Hathaway, Willem Dafoe, Ben Affleck, Toby Jones, Rosie Perez, Edi Gathegi, Mel Rodriguez, Brian Rechkemmer.

8. Steven Soderbergh‘s The Laundromat (Netflix) — Saga of journalists unearthing the Panama Papers scandal — a massive tax-evasion scheme involving 11.5 million files, secret banking accounts, powerful political figures. Melissa Rauch, Gary Oldman, Meryl Streep, Alex Pettyfer, David Schwimmer, James Cromwell, Matthias Schoenaerts, Antonio Banderas, Robert Patrick, Jeffrey Wright.

9. John Crowley‘s The Goldfinch (10.11, Warner Bros.) — Boilerplate: As a child, Theodore Decker survives a terrorist bombing at an art museum — an attack that kills his mother. From there, he tumbles through a series of adventures that finds him living in Las Vegas with his deadbeat father and, later, involved in art forgeries. / Ansel Elgort, Aneurin Barnard, Ashleigh Cummings, Willa Fitzgerald, Sarah Paulson, Luke Wilson, Jeffrey Wright, Nicole Kidman.

10. Gavin O’Connor‘s Torrance — Struggling with addiction, a former basketball star attempts becomes the coach of a disparate, ethnically mixed high school basketball team at his alma mater. (Ben Affleck, Janina Gavankar, Al Madrigal, Yeniffer Behrens) (Warner Bros.)

11. Roger Michell‘s Blackbird — A terminally ill mother arranges to bring her family together one last time before she dies. (Kate Winslet, Lindsay Duncan, Rainn Wilson, Susan Sarandon).

GENERAL APPEAL, BIGGER NAMES, BIGGER BUDGETS. etc. (30)

1. Ang Lee‘s Gemini Man — An over-the-hill hitman faces off against a younger clone of himself. (Will Smith, Clive Owen, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Benedict Wong).

2. Jon Favreau‘s The Lion King — CGI and live-action re-imagining of the 1994 Disney classic. (Voice-acting by Donald Glover, Alfre Woodard, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Seth Rogen).

3. Todd Phillips’ Joker — Joker origin story, you know the drill. (Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Shea Whigham, Zazie Beetz)

4. J.J. Abrams‘ Star Wars: Episode IX — The conclusion of the new ‘Star Wars’ trilogy. (Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Domhnall Gleeson, Kelly Marie Tran, et.al.)

5. Joe Wright‘s The Woman in the Window — An agoraphobic woman living alone in New York begins spying on her new neighbors only to witness a disturbing act of violence. (Amy Adams, Wyatt Russell, Gary Oldman, Julianne Moore)

6. All You Need Is Love (aka “Untitled Danny Boyle/Richard Curtis Film”) — Set to the music of the Beatles, it’s about a musician who thinks he’s the only one who can hear the Beatles’ music. (Lily James, Ed Sheeran, Ana de Armas, Kate McKinnon, Lamorne Morris) Sheeran plays himself discovering a rising young musician. Mckinnon plays a talent agent. Hamesh Patel costars.

7. James Mangold‘s Ford v. Ferrari — The true story of the battle between Ford and Ferrari to win Le Mans in 1966. (Christian Bale, Matt Damon, Jon Bernthal).

8. Jordan Peele‘s Us — A “social thriller” set between two couples — one white, one black. Starring Winston Duke (Black Panther) and Lupita Nyongo’o — L.A. Daily News critic Bob Strauss champing at the very bit. (Anna Diop, Elisabeth Moss, Kara Hayward)

9. Gavin Hood‘s Official Secrets — The true story of a British whistleblower who leaked information to the press about an illegal NSA spy operation designed to push the UN Security Council into sanctioning the 2003 invasion of Iraq. (Matthew Goode, Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes)

10. David Michod‘s The King — (Timothée Chalamet, Joel Edgerton, Ben Mendelsohn, Robert Pattinson, Lily-Rose Depp) Adaptation of William Shakespeare‘s Henry IV, Parts I and II and Henry V. Chronicles the early 1400’s medieval struggle between England and France, both in succession as well as on the battlefield. Timothee Chalamet as Henry V rises to the English throne after beating the French in the Battle of Agincourt. (Froench king is played by Robert Pattinson.) Oscar bait. Brad Pitt produces. Netflix.

11. David Gordon Green‘s Newsflash — On November 22, 1963 CBS newsman Walter Cronkite grapples with reporting on live television about President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in Texas. Not starring Seth Rogen as Cronkite (and thank God!), but possibly costarring Mark Ruffalo, Logan Lerman.

12. John Lee Hancock‘s The Highwaymen — Based on the true story of how two retired Texas Rangers put together the posse that killed Bonnie and Clyde — not as depicted in the ’67 Arthur Penn film. Paul Newman and Robert Redford were originally set to play the two leads before Newman’s health failed. (Kevin Costner, Woody Harrelson, Kathy Bates, Kim Dickens)

13. Rupert Goold‘s Judy — Biopic of Judy Garland‘s battle with drug addiction and divorce in London in 1968, one year before her death. Liza Minnelli has come out publicly against the film and against Rene Zellweger playing her mother. (Rufus Sewell, Michael Gambon, Jessie Buckley)

14. Deston Daniel Cretton‘s Just Mercy — Attorney Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) defends Walter McMillan (Jamie Foxx), a man unjustly imprisoned for murder. Based on Stephenson’s memoir. (Jordan, Foxx, Brie Larson, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Tim Blake Nelson, Rob Morgan)

15. Terrence Malick‘s Radegund — Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian conscientious objector, refuses to fight for the Third Reich in World War II and is executed in 1943. Shot in late summer of 2016. (August Diehl, Valerie Pachner, Michael Nyqvist, Jürgen Prochnow, Matthias Schoenaerts, Bruno Ganz)

16. Rian Johnson‘s Knives Out — A modern murder mystery in a classic whodunit style. (Jamie Lee Curtis, Ana de Armas, Michael Shannon, Chris Evans)

17. James Gray‘s Ad Astra — Astronaut Roy McBride travels to the outer edges of the solar system to find his missing father and unravel a mystery that threatens the survival of our planet. (Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, Ruth Negga)

18. Bobby Moresco‘s Lamborghini — The life story of Ferruccio Lamborghini, the founder of Lamborghini. (Antonio Banderas, Alec Baldwin, Maria Grazia Cucinotta, Leonardo Salerni)

19. Dexter Fletcher‘s Rocketman — Elton John biopic, from his years as a prodigy at the Royal Academy of Music through his influential and enduring musical partnership with Bernie Taupin. (Richard Madden, Taron Egerton, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jamie Bell)

20. Dan Gilroy‘s Velvet Buzzsaw — American horror thriller film, written and directed by Gilroy. (Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Zawe Ashton, Natalia Dyer, Tom Sturridge, Daveed Diggs, Toni Collette, John Malkovich and Billy Magnussen) Set in LA’s contemporary art world, wealthy celebrity artists collide with billionaire collectors in an unusually twisted comedy horror thriller. (Netflix)

21. Tom Harper‘s The Aeronauts — Pilot Amelia Wren and scientist James Glaisher find themselves in an epic fight for survival while attempting to make discoveries in a hot air balloon. (Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, Tim McInnerny)

PARTICULAR CONGREGATIONS / SMARTHOUSE / UPMARKET / INDIE SPIRITS GOTHAMS (58)

22. Sebastián Lelio‘s Gloria Bell — Remake of Lelio’s Chilean original. A middle-aged Los Angeles woman looking for love. (Julianne Moore, John Turturro, Alanna Ubach, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Sean Astin)

23. Steven Soderbergh‘s High Flying Bird — A sports agent pitches a rookie basketball client on an intriguing and controversial business opportunity during a lockout. (Zachary Quinto, Zazie Beetz, Kyle MacLachlan, Bill Duke)

24. Julie Taymor‘s The Glorias: A Life on the Road — Gloria Steinem‘s itinerant childhood and its influence upon her life as a writer, activist and organizer for women’s rights worldwide. (Alicia Vikander, Lulu Wilson, Julianne Moore, Bette Midler)

25. Craig Brewer‘s Dolemite Is My Name — The story of performer Rudy Ray Moore, who assumed the role of an iconic pimp named Dolemite during the 1970s. (Eddie Murphy, Wesley Snipes, Keegan-Michael Key, Craig Robinson)

26. Steven Soderbergh‘s The Laundromat — A group of journalists unearth the Panama Papers — 11.5 million files linking the world’s most powerful political figures to secret banking accounts to avoid taxes. (Gary Oldman, Melissa Rauch, Meryl Streep, Robert Patrick)

27. Kasi Lemmons‘ Harriet — The story of Harriet Tubman, who helped free hundreds of slaves from the South after escaping from slavery herself in 1849. (Janelle Monáe, Deborah Ayorinde, Cynthia Erivo, Joe Alwyn).

28. Noah Hawley‘s Pale Blue Dot — A female astronaut who, after returning to Earth from a life-changing mission in space, begins to slowly unravel and lose touch with reality. (Natalie Portman, Dan Stevens, Jon Hamm, Zazie Beetz)

29. Xavier Dolan‘s Matthias & Maxime — (Harris Dickinson, Dolan, Anne Dorval, Catherine Brunet)

39. Untitled Noah Baumbach Project — An unfolding divorce that spans from New York City to Los Angeles. (Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, Ray Liotta, Laura Dern)

31. Joe Berlinger‘s Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile — A chronicle of the crimes of Ted Bundy, from the perspective of his longtime girlfriend, Elizabeth Kloepfer, who refused to believe the truth about him for years. (Zac Efron, Lily Collins, Haley Joel Osment, Kaya Scodelario)

32. Justin Kurzel‘s The True History of the Kelly Gang — The story of Australian bush-ranger Ned Kelly and his gang as they flee from authorities during the 1870s, based on Peter Carey’s novel. (Charlie Hunnam, Russell Crowe, Nicholas Hoult)

33. Rod Lurie‘s The Outpost — Abut the 2013 Battle of Kamdesh in which Taliban forces attacked a U.S. outpost. The result of the battle was a pyrrhic victory as most the the outpost was destroyed (8 Americans killed, 27 wounded) but Taliban forces retreated due to losses of over 150 Taliban fighter killed during the battle. Staff Sergeant Clinton Romesha (Scott Eastwood) and Staff Sergeant Ty Carter (Caleb Landry Jones) were both awarded the Medal of Honor in 2013 for courageous actions. Orlando Bloom also stars.

34. Darius Marder‘s Sound of Metal — (Olivia Cooke, Riz Ahmed, Mathieu Amalric, Arthur Hiou)

35. Fernando Meirelles‘ The Pope — Opposing visions between two of the most powerful leaders in the Catholic Church, both of whom must address their own pasts and the demands of the modern world in order to move the church forward. (Juan Minujín, Anthony Hopkins, Jonathan Pryce, Matthew T. Reynolds)

36. Casey Affleck‘s Light of My Life — Father and daughter escape to the woods trying to outrun a deadly pandemic that has ravaged and destroyed the world. Also written by Affleck. (Casey Affleck, Elisabeth Moss, Tom Bower, Timothy Webber)

37. Robin Bissell‘s The Best of Enemies — Civil rights activist Ann Atwater faces off against C.P. Ellis, Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan, in 1971 Durham, North Carolina over the issue of school integration. (Sam Rockwell, Tarahji O. Henson, Wes Bentley, Anne Heche)

38. Max Winkler‘s Jungleland — A reluctant bare-knuckle boxer and his manager must travel across the country for one last fight, but an unexpected travel companion exposes the cracks in their bond along the way. (Charlie Hunnam, Jessica Barden, Jack O’Connell, John Cullum)

39. Mia Hansen-Løve‘s Bergman Island — An American filmmaking couple who retreat to Faro for the summer to each write screenplays for their upcoming films in an act of pilgrimage to the place. (Mia Wasikowska, Vicky Krieps, Anders Danielsen Lie, Joel Spira.)

40. John Crowley‘s The Goldfinch — A boy in New York is taken in by a wealthy Upper East Side family after his mother is killed in a bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Nicole Kidman, Sarah Paulson, Finn Wolfhard, Ansel Elgort)

41. Adrian Noble‘s Mrs. Lowry and Son — (Vanessa Redgrave, Timothy Spall, Stephen Lord) L.S. Lowry becomes a widely celebrated 20th century UK painter for his dark brooding landscapes and emaciated stick figures, but spends most of his life under the influence of his autocratic mother and dies a reclusive virgin.

42. Jim Jarmusch‘s The Dead Don’t Die — Deadpan comic zombie film (Tilda Swinton, Adam Driver, Caleb Landry Jones, Chloë Sevigny, Bill Murray, Steve Buscemi — possibly Daniel Craig.

51. Casey Affleck‘s Far Bright Star — Set in 1916, an aging cavalryman leads a team of men to hunt down the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. However, after an ambush in which most of the men are killed, the cavalryman must struggle to survive in the desert. (Joaquin Phoenix)

52. Scott Z. Burns‘ The Torture Report — In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, CIA agents begin using extreme interrogation tactics on those they think were behind it. (Adam Driver, Jon Hamm, Jennifer Morrison, Maura Tierney).

53. William Nicholson‘s Hope Gap — A family deals in the aftermath of the shock revelation that a husband plans to end his 29 year marriage to his wife. (Annette Bening, Bill Nighy, Josh O’Connor, Aiysha Hart)

54. Benh Zeitlin‘s Wendy — Set on a mysterious island where aging and time have come unglued, Zeitlin’s mythological story tells the tale of two children from different worlds fighting to maintain their grip on freedom and joy. (Tommie Lynn Milazzo, Shay Walker)

55. Bart Freundlich‘s After the Wedding — A manager of an orphanage in Kolkata travels to New York to meet a benefactor. (Michelle Williams, Julianne Moore, Billy Crudup, Will Chase)

56. James DeMonaco‘s Once Upon a Time in Staten Island — Allegedly a coming of age family drama set in the summer of 1982 on Staten Island. (Bobby Cannavale, Naomi Watts, Frank Grillo, Isabella Pisacane)

57. Dee Rees‘ The Last Thing He Wanted — A journalist quits her newspaper job and becomes an arms dealer for a covert government agency. (Anne Hathaway, Ben Affleck, Willem Dafoe, Toby Jones)

58. Robert Eggers‘ The Lighthouse — The story of an aging lighthouse keeper named Old who lives in early 20th-century Maine. (Robert Pattinson, Willem Dafoe)

59. Lone Scherfig‘s The Kindness of Strangers — Six characters cross paths one night in a Russian restaurant in Manhattan and change/save each other’s lives. (Andrea Riseborough, Zoe Kazan, Bill Nighy, Caleb Landry Jones, Jay Baruchel)

60. Chiwetel Ejiofor‘s The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind — A boy in Malawi helps his village by building a wind turbine after reading about them in a library book. (Chiwetel Ejiofor, Aïssa Maïga, Joseph Marcell, Noma Dumezweni)

61.Christoph Waltz‘s Georgetown — Ulrich Mott, an ambitious social climber, marries a wealthy widow in Washington D.C. in order to mix with powerful political players. (Christoph Waltz, Annette Bening, Corey Hawkins, Vanessa Redgrave)

62. Richard Linklater‘s Where’d You Go, Bernadette? — After her anxiety-ridden mother disappears, 15-year-old Bee does everything she can to track her down, discovering her troubled past in the process. (Cate Blanchett, Judy Greer, Kristen Wiig, Laurence Fishburne)

63. Benedict Andrews‘ Against All Enemies — An ambitious young F.B.I. Agent is assigned to investigate iconic actress Jean Seberg when she becomes embroiled in the tumultuous civil rights movement in late 1960s Los Angeles, California. (Kristen Stewart, Zazie Beetz, Vince Vaughn, Jack O’Connell)

64. Armando Iannucci‘s The Personal History of David Copperfield (Tilda Swinton, Ben Whishaw, Gwendoline Christie, Hugh Laurie)

65. Pablo Larraín‘s The True American — A Bangladeshi Air Force officer looking to make his way in the United States is shot by an American terrorist out to kill Muslims in the aftermath of September 11th.

66. Josephine Decker‘s Shirley — A famous Horror writer finds inspiration for her next book after she and her husband take in a young couple. (Elisabeth Moss, Michael Stuhlbarg, Logan Lerman, Odessa Young)

67. Lisa Barros D’Sa & Glenn Leyburn‘s Normal People — Adaptation of the Irish novel by Sally Mooney. Two opposites meet in high school, then again at university and fall in love while struggling with the meaning of their relationship as they share devastating setbacks in their lives. (Liam Neeson, Lesley Manville, Amit Shah, David Wilmot)

68. Wash Westmoreland‘s Earthquake Bird — A young expat living in Tokyo is suspected of murder, which uncovers a mysterious love triangle. (Alicia Vikander, Riley Keough, Jack Huston, Kiki Sukezane)

69. Josh Trank‘s Fonzo — The 47-year old Al Capone, after 10 years in prison, starts suffering from dementia, and comes to be haunted by his violent past. (Tom Hardy, Linda Cardellini, Noel Fisher, Matt Dillon)

70. Sia‘s Music — the story of a sober drug dealer and their disabled sister. (Kate Hudson, Hector Elizondo, Maddie Ziegler)

71. Julie Delpy‘s My Zoe — A divorced mother looks to protect her daughter after an unexpected tragedy. (Richard Armitage, Gemma Arterton, Lindsay Duncan, Daniel Brühl)

72. Paul Verhoeven‘s Benedetta — A 17th-century nun in Italy suffers from disturbing religious and erotic visions. She is assisted by a companion, and the relationship between the two women develops into a romantic love affair. (Virginie Efira, Charlotte Rampling, Lambert Wilson, Olivier Rabourdin)

73. Untitled Miranda July Project — A woman’s life is turned upside down when her criminal parents invite an outsider to join them on a major heist they’re planning. (Evan Rachel Wood, Gina Rodriguez, Debra Winger, Richard Jenkins)

74. Ciro Guerra‘s Waiting for the Barbarians — An honest magistrate in a small outpost of a large empire has a crisis of conscience and tries to lead a resistance when a military commander shows up to torture and murder the natives who pose no threat. The revered author J.M. Coetze won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Literary acolytes a little upset with Depp casting. (Johnny Depp, Robert Pattinson, Mark Rylance, Harry Melling)

75. Trey Edward Shults‘ Waves — Two young couples navigate through the emotional minefield of growing up and falling in love. (Lucas Hedges, Sterling K. Brown, Alexa Demie, Taylor Russell)

76. Yuval Adler‘s The Operative — A woman recruited by the Mossad to work undercover in Tehran. (Diane Kruger, Martin Freeman, Cas Anvar, Werner Daehn)

77. Jennifer Kent‘s The Nightingale — Set in 1825, Clare, a young Irish convict woman, chases a British officer through the rugged Tasmanian wilderness, bent on revenge for a terrible act of violence he committed against her family. (Aisling Franciosi, Sam Claflin, Damon Herriman)

78. Dome Karukoski‘s Tolkien –The formative years of the orphaned author as he finds friendship, love and artistic inspiration among a group of fellow outcasts at school. (Nicholas Hoult, Lily Collins, Pam Ferris, Laura Donnelly)

79. Marjane Satrapi‘s Radioactive — A story of the scientific and romantic passions of Marie and Pierre Curie, and the reverberation of their discoveries throughout the 20th century. (Rosamund Pike, Anya Taylor-Joy, Aneurin Barnard, Sam Riley)

80. James Kent‘s The Aftermath — Post World War II, a British colonel and his wife are assigned to live in Hamburg during the post-war reconstruction, but tensions arise with the German who previously owned the house. (Alexander Skarsgård, Keira Knightley, Jason Clarke, Kate Phillips)

81. Julius Onah‘s Luce — (Naomi Watts, Octavia Spencer, Tim Roth, Kelvin Harrison, Jr.) Adaptation of the hit play. Watts and Roth play the parents of an adopted African teenager who may harbor aspirations of terrorism.

82. Gideon Raff‘s The Red Sea Diving Resort — The rescue of Ethiopian Jewish immigrants to Israel in 1981. (Michiel Huisman, Haley Bennett, Chris Evans, Greg Kinnear)

83. Todd Robinson‘s The Last Full Measure — 34 years after his death, Airman William H. Pitsenbarger, Jr. (“Pits”) is awarded the nation’s highest military honor, for his actions on the battlefield. (Alison Sudol, Sebastian Stan, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Irvine)

84. Alice Winocour‘s Proxima — An astronaut prepares for a one-year mission aboard an international space station. (Eva Green, Matt Dillon, Lars Eidinger, Aleksey Fateev)

85. Liz Garbus‘s Lost Girls — A mother searching for her missing daughter in Long Island makes a horrifying discovery in the woods where the murdered bodies of four girls have been dumped. (Amy Ryan, Gabriel Byrne, Lola Kirke, Dean Winters)

86. Andy Goddard‘s Six Minutes to Midnight — Influential families in Nazi Germany have sent their daughters to a finishing school in an English sea side town to learn the language and be ambassadors. (Judi Dench, Jim Broadbent, James D’Arcy, Eddie Izzard)

87. Zeresenay Mehari‘s Sweetness in the Belly — Orphaned as a child, Lily experiences her parents homeland of England, escaping civil war. She becomes the heart of a disenfranchised community in London. (Dakota Fanning, Kunal Nayyar, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Wunmi Mosaku)

UNCERTAIN

Woody Allen‘s A Rainy Day in New York [in limbo at Amazon, allegedly streaming sometime in ’19)

22. Aaron Sorkin‘s Lucy and Desi — The lives and careers of television pioneers Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Probably not shooting yet — as of mid October 2018 they had not started. Producer friend says they’re still casting Desi. (Cate Blanchett) Possible 2020 release.

Untitled Harriet Tubman Project (HBO) — The life of Civil War-era activist Harriet Tubman, who worked to liberate slaves in the American South by developing an a secretive system that allowed them to escape to freedom. Screenplay by Kirk Ellis. (Viola Davis, Mike Gassaway)